nyc

The idea behind this morning’s post about USB flash drives struck me last night/this morning on a whim. Through absolutely no coordination whatsoever, I noticed the appearance of a photopool series on Flickr with every photo labeled “Dead Drops.” From the photos in the pool it appears someone1 is going around New York epoxying and cementing USB flash drives into public crevices. 2

A dead drop is, according to Wikipedia, “a location used to secretly pass items between two people, without requiring them to meet.”

Now, for the questions:

Who is doing this and why? Why those locations? What are on these drives? Where are they? Is someone mapping them? Are they read-only? 3 And, how long before someone sitting on a park bench or leaning up against a phone booth scrapes themselves on one of these?

As part of his EYEBEAM residency Aram Bartholl has been installing USB flash drive “Dead Drops” around NYC to encourage people to anonymously share files offline in public spaces. Here’s more info and photos of the project.

You might know Aram Bartholl as the man who came up with CAPTCHA business cards. Bartholl is making waves once more with yet another clever and still geeky work of art. Bartholl calls it Dead Drops, and the idea is simple – he embedded five flash drives into walls or curbs around New York so people can anonymously share files with each other.

As a part of his EYEBEAM residency, Aram Bartholl wanted to create a peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. And what better way to do that than embed USB flash drives into brick walls? The project, "Dead Drops," consists of five offline, anonymous drives where people can plug in their laptops to upload or drop any files they like.

What is Trespass? A beautiful new book of “Uncommissioned Urban Art” compiled by the folks from Wooster Collective. I will be at the Taschen Books Store on Wednesday night signing copies. If you are in NY, please do come by. If you know anyone that would be interested, please pass it on.

With an introduction by Banksy, Trespass features over 300 pages of photographs and texts by Carlo McCormick, Tony Serra, Anne Pasternak and Wooster Collective. Edited by Ethel Seno, the book is organized by theme, not chronologically or by artist. Chapters include: Conquest of Space, Public Memory/Private Secrets, and Magical Thinking.